4 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bdll. 183 



the stove at the east or men's end of the longhouse, telling the Creator 

 that the time had come for the Four Rituals which he had requested 

 people to perform for him. Then came the Feather Dance, which 

 was followed almost immediately by the announcement of the Thanks- 

 giving Dance. 



The morning's rituals so far had consumed slightly more than 2 

 hours, with approximately 20 minutes for the Thanksgiving Speech, 

 1 hour for the Tobacco Invocation, 10 minutes for the Personal 

 Chants, 5 minutes for the tobacco burning in the longhouse, and 15 

 minutes for the Feather Dance. The time unaccounted for was oc- 

 cupied by announcements, changes of location, and brief pauses be- 

 tween rituals. The total number of Seneca in the longhouse at this 

 point was about 70. 



At 10:40 a.m. the two singers took their places for the Thanksgiving 

 Dance, the speaker stood beside them and uttered a whoop charac- 

 teristic of this ritual, and the singing began. The opening group of 

 songs occupied 15 minutes and included 35 songs. Eight costumed 

 men left their seats during the fifth song, walked counterclockwise in 

 a line around the singers' bench, and with the sixth song began danc- 

 ing. Here they were joined by three costumed women who moved 

 in a second counterclockwise circle inside the men's, performing a dif- 

 ferent step. This gross pattern of movement is identical with that 

 of the Feather Dance. The dance steps, too, are similar or the same, 

 although performed in the Thanksgiving Dance with less gesticula- 

 tion and abandon. The costumed dancers were gradually joined by 

 a total of eight uncos tumed men and six un costumed women. All of 

 the uncostumed men returned to their seats before the end of this 

 group of songs. 



At 10:55 a.m. the speaker, who had been dancing last in the line of 

 costumed men, moved to a position next to and south of the center of 

 the singers' bench, facing north; he remained on this side of the 

 bench throughout the spoken portion of the ritual. At the end of 

 the last song he leaned over between the singers and sang loudly 

 wih yd . . .y his voice descending in pitch and increasing in glottaliza- 

 tion during the final sustained vowel. He then intoned alone on a 

 single pitch nya.'weh nya.'weh nya.'wsh ('thank you'). This was taken 

 up and repeated several times by the singers, while the speaker turned 

 and danced to the east end of the bench, faced about and danced to 

 the west end, and finally returned to the midpoint, where at the end 

 of a repeated phrase he again interrupted the singers with wih yd ... . 



The first spoken interval now began. The dancers resumed dancing 

 whenever there was a period of singing, but during the spoken intervals 

 they simply walked slowly in the same counterclockwise direction. 

 The dance step during the intervals of monotone singing here was 



